Pi li da la ba

Sammo Hung plays tuba-playing-policeman dubbed Officer Tuba, who joins forces with Police Detective Chow (David Chiang) to capture a band of blackmailers. Chow is gunned down in the process and, in his dying moment, makes Tuba promise that he will defeat the gangsters and avenge his death. Tuba forgets his promise after he is preoccupied with another police mission and with wooing his girlfriend-to-be Joanne (Joey Wang). As a result, Chow's ghost pays a visit.

This is a somewhat conventional ghost-comedy from Hong Kong, with a plot that starts off riveting with all the police action, but then drifts off to some comedic, but laughable, moments. The dating scenes of Tuba and Joanne consume a lot of the movie, which tends to drag the plot and sway it away from the main police/ghost elements. However, the comedy, again, is pretty good and sent me and my brother reeling with laughter, especially in the scenes where Chow's ghost torments and play tricks on Tuba in getting him to fulfill his promise of avenging his death.

A lot of cameos were crammed into the movie as well, with appearances by HK actors including Paul Chun, Stanley Fung, Lam Ching-Ying, Melvin Wong, John Sham and Dennis Chan. Sammo does not showcase his martial arts moves much, as his character is portrayed to be somewhat of a bumbling weakling. Much of the heroic action is due to Jacky Cheung, who plays Tuba's colleague.

Action is limited, with the end fight being probably the highlight of all the scarce action scenes. However, with the decent humor and acting inserted, this is not a bad ghost comedy for some light entertainment.

Grade B-

It starts with the Hong Kong police chase down a criminal and a good chase it was. Sammo plays the tuba at an awards ceremony. The story really starts when David Chiang is killed and reappears as a ghost to Sammo. The problem is what was all that filler material at the beginning that had nothing to do with the story? The first half really went nowhere. The good stuff was the scenes with Chang Yi and Hwang Jang Lee. Those fights could have been twice as long. My copy is a DVD but the original material was a laser disk. This copy took me years to find. It is one of the hardest to find of Sammo Hung's movies. Overall just average for Sammo but any Sammo movie is above average.

As I happened to stumble upon the 1986 Hong Kong action comedy "Pi Li Da La Ba" (aka "Where's Officer Tuba") here in 2022, I just had to sit down and watch it. Simply because this was a Hong Kong movie that I hadn't already seen, but also because it had an interesting cast ensemble.

And as I now have seen "Pi Li Da La Ba", aside from a rather bad title, then the movie's storyline was pretty generic, even for a mid-1980s Hong Kong action comedy. But hey, if you enjoyed that era's action comedies, then you know what you're getting here, for better or worse. Writer Barry Wong wasn't exactly revolutionizing the Hong Kong cinema with this movie. But sure, I was adequately entertained by "Pi Li Da La Ba" turned out to be, as I happen to enjoy the mid-1980s Hong Kong cinema.

What does work in "Pi Li Da La Ba", is the cast ensemble. You have Sammo Kam-Bo Hung in the leading role, and then you have familiar faces such as Jacky Cheung, Dennis Chan, Paul Chun and even Wah Yuen and Bolo Yeung on the cast list. So there are some pretty familiar faces on the cast list if you are well-traversed in the Hong Kong cinema.

While "Pi Li Da La Ba" is watchable, it is hardly a movie that warrants more than just a single viewing, however.

My rating of directors Phillip Chan and Ricky Lau's 1986 movie lands on a five out of ten stars.

sammo hung is a cowardly officer in the police band. playing the tuba gets him the name Tuba. the police sargent needs someone to go under-cover and deliver extortion money, so he picks tuba...

i dont want to spoil the plot, but its a pretty good ghost/cop movie. loads of hilarious embarrassing moments. Sammo can do no wrong! 6.5/10